Employees should be able to exercise their right to secret ballot union elections.

ABC strongly opposes any effort to overturn the established NLRB procedures that guarantee our working men and women a fair union election through the many protections guaranteed by secret ballot voting.

Currently, the preferred method for determining whether or not employees want a union to represent them is a secret ballot election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB provides detailed procedures that ensure a fair election, free of fraud, where employees may cast their vote confidentially without peer pressure or coercion from unions or employers.

Yet, union leadership now claims to find secret ballot elections an impediment to unionization, preferring "card check" elections, where employees are forced to cast their vote in front of union organizers and fellow employees who support unionization, instead of using the NLRB's secret ballot method. Free and fair elections should be a guaranteed protection for all working men and women because they combat fraud and coercion.

ABC of Michigan is a statewide trade association representing the commercial and industrial construction industries. Dedicated to open competition, equal opportunity and accountability in construction, ABC members develop people, win work and deliver that work safely, ethically, profitably and for the betterment of the communities in which ABC and its members work.